Elevators, Angry Birds and Wifebeaters
by TheTruthBetween
Summary: Requested on Tumblr: Castle and Beckett are stuck in an elevator together.


_Okay, the beginning/set up is kind of stilted. And the storyline totally got away from me. (Dammit, Muses! I wanted smut!) But this is what came out, so I hope you like it :)_

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Halfway between the third and fourth floors, the elevator halted in place with a loud clunk. Beckett's eyebrows rose as she looked up. "Uh, Espo, I'll call you back in a minute." Clicking the button to end her call, she tucked her phone away. "What the hell just happened?"

"I don't know, the elevator just stopped," Castle replied, stepping over to the panel and fiddling with the buttons.

Beckett rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I noticed that. I want to know why it stopped." She edged in front of her partner, pulling out the emergency phone. "Hi, this is Detective Beckett, the elevator seems to be stuck between floors." She listened for a long moment, her expression getting pinched. "Okay. Yeah, thanks." Hanging up, she took a deep, fortifying breath. "It'll be a few hours. Apparently it's an emergency override when something breaks - the elevator locks and doesn't move. He said a gear broke."

"He knows it's August, right?" Castle asked. "We'll be melted in a couple of hours."

"Not much he can do about it, Castle." Blowing out a breath, Beckett slipped her light jacket off and pulled out her phone, calling Esposito back and both letting him in on the situation and passing along the information from her meeting with the witness. Once she was finished, she sat down on the floor, draping her wrists over her knees. "Come on, Castle," she invited with a wry twist to her lips. "Make yourself comfortable."

Mumbling about the hazards of elevators and how he was going to die one day in one, Castle followed suit, shedding his own blazer and sliding down the wall to sit next to his partner.

A minute passed in silence.

"Now what?" Castle asked.

Beckett glanced sideways at him. "What, are you bored already?"

"No," Castle protested defensively. "But we're going to be here for a few hours, so I will be at some point. I want to know what my options are in advance."

"Play Angry Birds."

A little sulkily, Castle pulled out his phone to play the addictive game. After twenty minutes, Beckett pulled an elastic out of her pocket and tied her hair back in a messy bun. Ten minutes after that she undid two buttons on her shirt, showing just a hint of a blue lace bra. Castle lost his current game level.

Five more minutes and she was pulling her boots and socks off and pulling at her shirt as a make-shift fan.

"Okay, Castle, how are you still fully clothed?"

"I figured you'd shoot me if I started undressing." Castle wiped sweat from his forehead.

"Extenuating circumstances. Keep your pants on and I won't take my gun out."

Castle didn't even bother to reply, choosing instead to use his energy to strip down to his jeans and white wifebeater instead. "Ah, dying slower now," he sighed, settling back down again and returning to his game.

Beckett eyed her partner a little uncertainly, both curious as to why he kept his undershirt on, and cursing him a little for it. She had a thing for white wifebeaters and blue jeans. A massive, massive thing. A thing that was not at all helping her body temperature. And now her (admittedly attractive) partner was wearing just that - complete with the bare feet that her "mini-fetish" always called for.

And she couldn't jump him.

Sure, she wanted to. And sure, he was single. But dammit, she **wasn't **single. And that was a **huge **problem right now.

She took a slow breath, leaning her head back against the wall and looking at the ceiling. She resisted him in LA, she could resist him now.

_(Except that she didn't actually resist him in LA. She gave in to him, he just hadn't waited the five extra seconds it had taken.)_

Too bad she didn't have practice resisting him like this.

She checked her phone. It had been forty-five minutes. "Shit," she muttered to herself. In the silence of the elevator, the sound carried.

"Something wrong?" Castle asked, lifting his head to look at her.

Beckett shook her head. "No, just thinking. It's nothing." On the scale of douchebaggery, how high up was breaking up with your boyfriend of almost a year via text message? Just the thought gave Beckett twinges of guilt. But on the other hand, wasn't it less douchey to break up with a text than to cheat on him and then break up in person?

Because clearly she was about to lose her grip on her self-control.

God, if Castle ever found out that all he had to do to make her lose it was sit there, ignoring her, wearing jeans and a beater, she might **actually** die of embarrassment. Was that even possible? She'd have to ask Lanie.

In the mean time, Castle was all shiny with sweat (since when was that a thing for her?) and concentrating intently on his phone (always been a thing for her) and she could almost literally hear the creaking and groaning of her self-restraint.

Fuck it.

She pulled up Josh's number and opened a new text. 'Hey, got a minute?' It was only about thirty seconds after hitting send that the reply came through: 'Sure, what's up, Kate?'

Now what?

'I'm in imminent danger of either breaking up with you right now or cheating on you - do you have a preference?' No, that was definitely **way** up there on the douche scale. She deleted it. 'We need to talk & I don't want to over text but I kind of have to.'

'Kate? What's wrong?'

Oh God. She couldn't do this. Blowing out a breath, Beckett looked up from her phone, gaze catching on her partner. Okay, she definitely had to do this. 'I don't want to be a bitch, doing this over text.'

This time the wait for a reply was much longer. 'Kate. What are you trying to say?'

Steeling herself, Beckett took a deep breath and quickly texted, 'We can't see each other anymore.'

Another long wait. 'So the writer finally got his head out of his ass.'

Beckett frowned at the message. 'He hasn't done anything.' It wasn't quite true... Castle has done many things over the years to break down her walls and quietly (and sometimes not-so-quietly) urge her to fall in love with him. But in the context of the conversation, not only had he not done anything, but he was still cluelessly playing Angry Birds.

'Right. Just tell me one thing, Kate. Have you slept with him?'

She actually, physically recoiled from her phone, drawing Castle's attention again. Waving him off, she wrote back, 'No, of course not! Nothing's changed between me and Castle.' Yet. She was fairly certain the yet was so loud it attached itself to her message on its own.

'Yet.' And then Josh was psychic. A second message quickly followed. 'Why else would you be doing this over TEXT?'

'You're right. But Castle hasn't changed anything. It's me who's changed.'

'That doesn't make me feel any better. I gotta go. I'll pick up my stuff tomorrow.'

And that was that. Beckett chewed her lower lip as she slipped her phone away. She was single again. And after that conversation, she was **so** not in the mood anymore.

But... She tilted her head and regarded her partner. At least the next time the mood did strike, she'd be free to do something about it.


End file.
